Above all, that class of 'Logic-choppers, and treble-pipe Scoffers, and professed Enemies to Wonder; who, in these days, so numerously patrol as night-constables about the Mechanics' Institute of Science, and cackle, like true Old-Roman geese and goslings round their Capitol, on any alarm, or on none; nay who often, as illuminated Sceptics, walk abroad into peaceable society, in full day-light, with rattle and lantern, and insist on guiding you and guarding you therewith, though the Sun is shining, and the street populous with mere justice-loving men': that whole class is inexpressibly wearisome to him.

Hear with what uncommon animation he perorates: 'The man who cannot wonder, who does not habitually wonder (and worship) were he President of innumerable Royal Societies, and carried the whole _Mecanique Celeste_ and _Hegel's Philosophy_, and the epitome of all Laboratories and Observatories with their results, in his single head,--is but a Pair of Spectacles behind which there is no Eye.

Let those who have Eyes look through him, then he may be useful.
'Thou wilt have no Mystery and Mysticism; wilt walk through thy world by the sunshine of what thou callest Truth, or even by the hand-lamp of what I call Attorney-Logic; and "explain" all, "account" for all, or believe nothing of it?
Nay, thou wilt attempt laughter; whoso recognises the unfathomable, all-pervading domain of Mystery, which is everywhere under our feet and among our hands; to whom the Universe is an Oracle and Temple, as well as a Kitchen and Cattlestall,--he shall be a delirious Mystic; to him thou, with sniffing charity, wilt protrusively proffer thy hand-lamp, and shriek, as one injured, when he kicks his foot through it ?--_Armer Teufel!_ Doth not thy cow calve, doth not thy bull gender?
Thou thyself, wert thou not born, wilt thou not die?
"Explain" me all this, or do one of two things: Retire into private places with thy foolish cackle; or, what were better, give it up, and weep, not that the reign of wonder is done, and God's world all disembellished and prosaic, but that thou hitherto art a Dilettante and sandblind Pedant.'.